Earthquake did not disrupt campus

An earthquake that shook a large portion of the East Coast this afternoon left Pitt’s campus… An earthquake that shook a large portion of the East Coast this afternoon left Pitt’s campus mostly unaffected.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said that no one reported any injuries or damage to University buildings. No city or county services seem to have been affected this afternoon by the earthquake. The 5.8 magnitude earthquake, centered 84 miles southwest of Washington, shook parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey just before 2 p.m.

Arrival Survival student volunteers Thu Ha, Mike Mayrosh and Kenyon Day were standing outside the William Pitt Union helping students move in when the earthquake struck. All three said that they didn’t feel the earthquake.

Junior Katrina Jacob, assistant coordinator of Arrival Survival, was sitting in Schenley Quad when the earthquake hit, but she didn’t feel anything. She said the move-in process was “not shook up by the shake up,” and that everything was running on schedule.

Kent Harries, associate professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at the Swanson School of Engineering, said that earthquakes are not necessarily rare in Pennsylvania, but that they tend to have a smaller magnitude than others across the country.

Harries said that buildings often magnify ground motion, which is why people in buildings could feel the shaking and people on the ground could not.

“Imagine a great big lollipop, and when you shake the bottom, you can really feel it at the top,” Harries said.

Colin Rawleigh, a Pitt accountant who works on the 37th floor of the Cathedral of Learning, said he was sitting in his chair when it “started wheeling around.” His co-worker stood up and started swaying. The two took the elevator down to the ground floor after the earthquake subsided.

Fedele said that people had voluntarily evacuated buildings after the earthquake.

The University did not officially evacuate the Cathedral, and there were not any alarms or streams of people flooding out of the building. At around 2:20 p.m., about 25 people stood outside the front entrance after feeling and hearing talk of the earthquake.

Students taking the MCAT exam on the ground floor of the Cathedral evacuated in the middle of their test, but filed back into the building a few minutes later and continued with the exam.

The majority of work in Pittsburgh is still going on as planned this afternoon.

Construction continues at the University Place office building, the future site of Pitt’s newest dormitory. Workers there said that they had not felt anything.

Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said that he wasn’t aware of any disruptions to bus services at the moment.

E.J. Borghetti, the senior athletic director at Pitt, said that the earthquake did not affect Pitt football. He said that the team practiced this morning, and that he is unaware of any other disruptions affecting the team’s schedule.

Greg Hotchkiss, Pitt athletics spokesman, said that the quake did not affect any other Pitt athletics.

Duquesne Light’s systems have not been impacted by the earthquake and all the systems are secure, Duquesne Light spokesman Joey Vallarian said.

Alvin Henderson, the acting chief for the Allegheny County Department of Emergency Services, said that they have not received any reports of major damages or injuries associated with the earthquake in Allegheny County.

The earthquake was the first one to hit Pittsburgh since 1998, when a smaller 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Pymatuning Reservoir along the Pennsylvania and Ohio border, said John Harper, a geologist with the Pennsylvania Geologist Survey, which is headquartered on Waterfront Drive in Pittsburgh.

The 1998 earthquake measured in at 5.3-magnitude, but Harper said that that quake was nowhere near the earthquake felt today in scale.

“You have to realize that the magnitude scale goes up exponentially,” he said. “So like a 6 is like a million times stronger than a 5.”

Harper said he has experienced three earthquakes in the 34 years that he’s been conducting surveys.

“This is my first earthquake; I’m so excited,” he said. “The first two I did not feel, unfortunately.”